Australia has always been a little out of the way from the rest of the world to make a massive global difference. But in recent years, the world has never been more open, or more accessible for the taking, for local entrepreneurs.

Small businesses are the biggest opportunity on the web right now – especially in the FinTech space. It is something Rod Drury and his team at Xero are referring to as the emergence of the “financial web” and Dropbox has just come to the party.

If MYOB has the reputation of being the ‘preferred accounting software for small business’ then Xero is certainly fast becoming the ‘technology partner of choice’ for startups when it comes to managing their numbers.

Perceptar is the name of Chris Joannou’s pet project which allows users to see through the phone of friends and random followers alike. Anyone that is filming live on the network in ‘public’ mode’ will be able to see what your phone sees.

There’s no doubt that accounting is getting smarter in the 21st century as vast amounts of information, transactions and complex business processes move into the cloud to further trim workplace efficiency. More importantly however is the arrival of a platform called an API that has accounting software giants like MYOB and Xero implementing their own versions of this highly versatile tool.

Xero Ltd (XRO) announces the appointment of Stuart McLean to the new role of Chief Revenue Officer. McLean moves to Xero from Google in Sydney where he has been Head of Enterprise Australia New Zealand, driving cloud applications business for products such as Google Apps. His previous roles also include managing a distributor for cloud ERP solution NetSuite and an extensive career at enterprise software vendor Oracle.

Xero is one of the world’s fastest growing providers of online accounting software for small businesses and their advisors. The company has over 100,000 paying customers in more than 100 countries, with teams established across Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US.

Startup Grind Melbourne Welcomes Chris Ridd, CEO of Xero.com. Chris Ridd has been Managing Director of Australia at Xero Limited since February 2011. Mr. Ridd has more than 20 years in the Australian IT industry – the last 15 years at Microsoft. His experience spans a range of disciplines including enterprise sales and marketing, product management, strategic planning, business analysis, channel development and people management. He was Director of the Microsoft Dynamics Business Group for Australia.